


(Row row row your boat) Gently down

by casey_sms (shinygreenwords), shinygreenwords



Category: The Social Network
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Characters Reading Fanfic, Community:tsn_kinkmeme, Dubious Consent, Dysfunctional Relationships, M/M, Masturbation, Pining, Twincest, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-20
Updated: 2011-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:17:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,241
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/154069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/pseuds/casey_sms, https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinygreenwords/pseuds/shinygreenwords
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>When Tyler kisses him and explains that he means, “I’m in love with you”, Cameron laughs.</i></p><p>For <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/tsn_kinkmeme/390.html?thread=873350#t873350">this prompt</a> at <a href="http://community.livejournal.com/tsn_kinkmeme/profile"><img/></a><a href="http://community.livejournal.com/tsn_kinkmeme/"><b>tsn_kinkmeme</b></a>     requesting Cameron/Tyler: "<i>so I'll just stand here and pretend that I'm not dying on the inside". </i><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	(Row row row your boat) Gently down

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning/Kinks:** Angst, implied slight dub-con, dysfunction relationships, twincest, masturbation, unrequited love, pining  
> 

Tyler knows that no one could understand him more than Cameron. Tyler believes that they should do everything together because that is their destiny. They are meant to be two parts that fit perfectly together. Of course he never tells anyone this because they wouldn’t understand. Except for Cameron. Cameron has always been his exception.

Cameron tolerates it but he doesn’t believe in it. Not like Tyler does.

One time, Tyler finally gets up the courage to say, “I love you” meaning more than a brother, Cameron replies easily, “I love you too” like he always does.

When Tyler kisses him and explains that he means, “I’m in love with you”, Cameron laughs.

“Of course you are,” Cameron said, identical blue eyes twinkling with mirth. “You’ve always been in love with me.”

Tyler is stunned into silence. It's true. He has been in love with Cameron since he can remember. But it feels new, different somehow. When he sees Cameron he gets the fondness he’s always felt but now there’s an edge of something else. Something powerful.

***

It’s hard to pretend everything is okay because it isn’t. How can Cam be so blasé? It changes everything. Every time he sees Cameron, he wants him. It’s not a teenage experimentation phase. He knows what he wants (and doesn’t want). He doesn’t want to exchange rushed handjobs under the covers. Tyler wants Cameron, all of him, and he wants to tell the world that he’s in love with his twin brother (and go fuck yourself if you don’t like it). Tyler knows he’ll never be able to have that but he wants something more than sex. He wants to be with him and yet he wants to get away from him because seeing him is too much. Tyler has to live with Cam, brush his teeth next to him in the bathroom mirror and pick clothes from the same closet even though seeing him makes something inside his chest ache. It’s like seeing the figure on the other side of the mirror. You can’t quite cross the other side. Except it’s worse because Tyler can and he has no impulse control whatsoever.

Cameron won’t let Tyler fuck him but he fucks Tyler when he asks for it. (It’s a deal they made a long time ago – they never refuse each other anything if one of them has what the other needs. They’ve always had to share everything.) Cameron is a great sex partner but it’s clear he doesn’t feel the same way. Tyler has seen Cameron in love and he knows Cameron is not in love with him.

Tyler doesn’t know how but he uses everything in him to stop asking. Seeing Cameron, no, forcing Cameron go through the motions hurts. Cameron tries but Tyler can read him. Cameron won’t hold his gaze, he closes his eyes when he comes and Tyler notices that he hesitates ever so slightly when he says, “love you too, Ty.” Tyler feels horrible. The desperation eats at him (they never covered what would happen if they have mutually exclusive needs – it never occurred to them that they would have to). Tyler pulls on himself so roughly that he’s surprised he can come with the pain.

It is only when they are rowing that Cameron seems to be on the same wavelength as him. It is only then Cameron is comfortable with being around Tyler. Never has Tyler hated rowing so much.

“So you want me to just stand here and pretend that I'm not dying on the inside?” Tyler hisses under his breath.

“Don’t be dramatic, Ty. If you want something, then ask. We’ll talk later. Just row the boat,” Cameron says.

(It’s a familiar phrase. Cameron always says ‘just row the boat’ because for him it’s that simple. It never used to bother him. It used to be simple for him too. But now he feels like they’re rowing in opposite directions, stuck in one place, going nowhere fast.)

Cameron’s dismissive reply makes him so angry. Tyler puts his oars down. He wants to punch Cameron in the face. He jumps out of the boat instead, swimming to shore even though the water is cold. Tyler makes lame excuses to the crew afterward about really needing to piss (he’s always protected Cameron and even though he’s pissed at him, he’d lie for him in a heartbeat). They don’t talk end up talking about it. Tyler doesn’t ask for anything. Cameron doesn’t bring it up.

They return to rowing the next day as usual.

But it’s too late.

They’ve fallen out of sync.

***

They lose at Beijing. 6th place. It’s pathetic. The whole race, he could feel their rhythm was off before it begun. Their coaches can’t understand because it’s barely noticeable, they wouldn’t understand. It’s a twin thing. Well, it’s about not being twins. (They were successful in the past because they did not row as twins synchronized to each other but as one fused unit.) It’s about the intention as it is about the movement. It’s about being. They are now two identical, separate bodies. Graceless, desperately trying to match each other’s strokes. No matter how hard Tyler tries, he cannot find Cameron’s rhythm. Just when he thinks he has it, it slips away from him.

Tyler is glad when Cameron gives up competitive rowing for the both of them after that.

***

Cameron doesn’t talk to him beyond what is necessary. Even though they live together, Tyler feels like he’s living alone although he wouldn’t know what it’s like. He imagines that it’s like this. The silence filled by the TV, dressing on his own in the morning without looking at what Cameron is wearing. Sometimes when he’s watching a show, he’ll forget and turn to his side. Seeing the empty space beside him, Tyler remembers and wishes he didn’t. He flounders to regain himself, feeling like he’s newly crippled every time.

(Tyler would rather Cameron be angry and threaten to hammer his door down. The silence is much more painful. When they arrested Cameron after he hulked out, they wouldn’t let Tyler go with him. It’s one of the few times that Cameron has gone somewhere where he cannot follow. It feels like that now except there’s no squad, no bars, no lawyers. Tyler doesn’t understand.)

***

After the movie comes out, Tyler feels both blessed and cursed. It makes them more famous than they were already. It’s definitely cool to be in a film, sort of (they were mentioned by name, it counts). At least found a hot guy to play them both and he thinks that they’ve gotten some pretty good lines. As a result, they have interviews to do together and its great publicity. They get to walk the red carpet. Their parents are proud of them both. The movie draws attention to them being twins, all the stuff they have to do together means Cameron has to stop avoiding him. The downside is that Tyler wants Cam to want to spend time with him so it isn’t much. Still by awkward starts and stops, they find themselves walking beside each other again even if Tyler detects that Cameron is cautious (like in the movie, he notes absently). Cameron is always walking a little too fast, Tyler feels like he can’t quite catch up (maybe he’s too slow).

Not long after, Tyler finds the stuff written about them on the internet by fans of the movie. Its stories about him and Cameron. Being together. About them loving each other – as more than brothers. It should make him feel sick. It does. Except it makes him sick with _want_. It teases him with this fantastic reality (or is it real fantasy?) He doesn’t care that it’s not real because it could be. This is what it could be like, they could be together, they could love each other. They could live in a world of their own. It’s breathtaking.

Tyler stays clear from any of the ‘angst’ stories after reading one because it hits too close to home. He doesn’t want to read about him pining after Cameron. He doesn’t want to read about Cameron pining after him either. The latter is worse because he feels the pain that ‘Cameron’ feels. It is the first time he can remember in which he deliberately wished pain upon his twin brother and on himself, if only because it is something they can share. With the ‘angst’ stories, the flurry of feelings in him is suddenly rearranged into words and it makes sense in a weird way and he doesn’t know what to do. He would rather not know. Tyler suspects the one thing the stories have in common is the one thing he fears most: this story cannot, does not have a happy ending.

He would rather lose himself in the false comforts of porn. This he knows. This he’s had. This he can have, if he wants. Tyler only has to ask.

(Tyler comes with Cameron’s name muffled by his fist.)

***

They decide to do a television panel together in front of a live audience.

(“It sounds fun,” Tyler said lightly, trying not to sound like he’s begging or asking anything.

“Sure, whatever,” Cameron agreed easily.)

They still dress identically though Tyler feels different. He finds himself noticing the differences more than the similarities. Tyler wonders if Cameron has always been able to knot his tie on himself with such ease. Tyler has to loop his tie over the neck of a coat hanger before slipping the colorful noose over himself. He’s too used to Cam doing his tie up for him and him doing Cameron’s in exchange. He feels stupid doing the tie up on a hanger but he knows his knot is going to be wonky otherwise then he’ll look even more stupid. It feels awkward with Cameron watching him but Tyler refuses to hide in the bathroom like he’s doing something sordid.

“Here, let me,” Cameron says, smirking a little but his voice is kind.

Tyler stands still and tries not to think about Cameron’s hands at his collar or grabbing Cameron’s face and kissing him. He doesn’t even realized he’s holding his breath until Cameron leaves the room and he’s exhaling loudly.

The panel goes well until they start receiving questions from the audience.

A brown-haired girl with an innocent face gushes about being a huge supporter before asking, “Have you heard of twincest? What do you think about fans of ‘The Social Network’ pairing you two as a couple?”

Tyler thinks, _oh fuck_ and hopes fervently that he isn’t doing anything obvious like blushing.

(Luckily, he’ll discover, the camera will be focused on Cameron’s I-am-about-to-rip-my-clothes-off-and-hulk-out face.)

“What- What kind of question is that? That is sick and utterly ridiculous,” Cameron spits out before storming off the set.

Tyler laughs nervously and manages to play it off with a quip, “Well, I guess they got me wrong. I’m supposed to be the angry twin.” He accepts the apologies from the other members of the panel smoothly, thanks the audience and excuses himself to go after Cameron.

(It would spawn more fic and Tyler can’t say it doesn’t please him though honestly at the time, he’d been terrified and not at all thinking about how sexy Cameron looks when he’s angry. Tyler knows Cameron’s anger is pure, intense and awesome. He is glad that he’s not the only one that notices.)

***

It is Tyler that calls up the lawyers again and convinces them to reopen the case against Zuckerberg – to draw up another lawsuit. They are going to sue the nerd again. Ostensibly because the original settlement was “insufficient” and they were “mislead with regard to the true value of Facebook.” It’s a flimsy excuse and Tyler doesn’t care.

He can see the irony. This was the one thing that divided them six, seven years ago. This is the one thing they have in common now since they’ve given up rowing. They’ll probably lose. They’ll come off as losers. Tyler will gladly sacrifice his pride if Cameron will lay down his too. It’ll be us versus them again. (Like it had been, like it should be, like it could be).

With the appeal, Cameron will have to be on his side. Cam will obsess over the lawsuit. He will be frustrated and he will want. Tyler knows what it is to want. The desire crawling so far under your skin that want and need are the same. Tyler knows what it is to want and not to have.

There is a chance that they might lose it all. It’s all or nothing. (Cameron is worth more to him than his pride, 140 million dollars and a lawsuit. He does not care now what he has to give as long as he gets Cameron, gets him back.)

If, when, it fails, Tyler will be there, waiting quietly. He will comfort Cameron with what he has; he will withstand the rage and lift him up from despair. He will give everything to Cameron to ensure that he will want for nothing. Their needs and wants will become indistinct with the intensity of it all and it won’t matter, they have always had each other’s interests at heart. If they end up with nothing, they will have to settle for each other.

( _“Ty, I need you.”_

 _“I’m right here, Cam. I’m not going anywhere.”_ )

**Author's Note:**

> Possible abuse of brackets. (I like them for this story.) Yes/no? Lemme know what you think :)


End file.
